Friday, November 23, 2012

Rejuvenate, Recharge and Verboten

I took Thanksgiving eve off from work to do whatever.  Initially a day of relaxation almost became a day of cookie baking frenzie.  Thrilled to spend the day with my niece baking cookies, I decided to do a test run on Sunday and discovered we might need more than one day for baking.  I went through my recipe book and I realized I haven't made any cookies other than Toll House chocolate chips and variations with oatmeal, cranberries or nuts.  I flipped through my Saveur magazines and they too, were limited with cookie recipes so I relied on the internet.

The list of cookies I chose included:
Rich Chocolate Rum Cookies (Gourmet, 9/1996)
World Peace/Korova Cookies (Paris Sweets - Great Desserts from the City's Best Pastry Shops, 2002)
Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies
Chocolate-Chunk Oatmeal Cookies with Pecans and Dried Cherries
Snickerdoodles (Saveur)
Vanillekipferl (Saveur, 12/2010)
White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies (Saveur, 12/2012)
Peanut Butter Cookies (Saveur, 10/2012)

Then I forgot I needed to make a fruit salad, prep broccoli and I wanted to bake a cake (from scratch) for Thanksgiving.  For the next two days I shopped for the ingredients and gathered pans from a friend.  Since I created a potentially hectic cookie baking day, I decided to make some cookies doughs Tuesday night to limit the frenzie.  I researched the potential freezability of the doughs and that is how I picked some of the cookies, too.  My niece ended up going to a sleepover with friends Tuesday night, rescheduling our cookie date.  I was glad and disappointed at the same time.

Thanksgiving eve was again my day to relax.  I still made some doughs, rolled them into logs and froze them for our December date.  Did some charitable work, checked in online, rode the Schwinn to market for two dozen eggs and a Weyerbacher Verboten from The Fridge and then rode home and made a Hummingbird Cake (Saveur).
 I spent the evening closing The Fridge with Brad and some friends.  Earlier in the day the owners unfortunately told me the keg in waiting when the Verboten kicked was Duvel; Brad's favorite beer.  One Verboten after another led to three or four and Thanksgiving fuzziness.  Duvel was tapped that night but thankfully I was out of cash.  Hopefully we will return for Duvel before we head downtown on Black Friday evening for the Christmas tree lighting.  Happy Thanksgiving all.